Why it works: Flour and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Leg of Mutton with Sorrel Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare and roast
Wipe the leg of mutton with a damp cloth, then with a dry cloth.
Place the mutton in a covered roaster and pour boiling water over it.
Roast at 400°F (200°C) for 12 minutes per pound.
Fifteen minutes before serving, remove the cover to brown the meat.
If not using a covered roaster, baste the meat with pan gravy every 15 minutes.
Do not serve mutton gravy with the roast; instead, serve with currant jelly.
Make the sorrel sauce
For the sauce, stir butter and browned flour into boiling water.
Add minced sorrel, paprika, and salt; cook for 1 minute.
Remove from heat and slowly beat in the whipped egg yolk.
Keep the sauce warm in boiling water until serving.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Flour + sorreltop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together231 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + sorreltop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together652 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of young mutton
- Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and browned to form the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
- Browned flour
- Thickens the sauce and adds a nutty, toasted flavour.
- Field sorrel
- Provides the sharp, acidic flavour that defines the sauce.
- Egg yolk
- Enriches and thickens the sauce as it sets gently with the heat.
The step that matters
Beating in the egg yolk off the heat. If the sauce is too hot when the egg yolk goes in, the egg proteins can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy. Removing it from heat first and adding the yolk slowly lets it thicken gently and stay smooth.
Swap the sorrel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, flour, egg):
- Capersfits about as well
- Sorrelthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleyfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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